Living in Rural Areas and Receiving Cancer Treatment Away From Home: A Qualitative Study Foregrounding Temporality.

We used explorative interviews to gauge (inter)personal, physiological, and emotional challenges of seven rural cancer patients who traveled long distances to cancer treatment centers. After a thematic analysis, we foregrounded experiences of temporality by using a phenomenologically inspired approach. The analysis resulted in three themes: (a) An epiphany of "what really matters in life"-time gains new meaning, (b) Feeling out of sync with others and own body-striving for coherence and simultaneity, and (c) Being torn between benefits of home and treatments site-time and distance as a tangible aspect of traveling and being away.